text: To Naomi Cavaday it seems a lifetime ago since she briefly thrilled Wimbledon’s Centre Court by taking eventual champion Venus Williams to a first set tiebreak. It was actually only 2008 when, at 19, she showed why many judges believed she was that rare commodity, a British tennis player who was a surefire prospect to crack the world’s top fifty. The tale of someone who represents Wimbledon’s host nation failing to deliver on early promise is a familiar one, but none have been quite like that of the now 25-year-old from Bexley. British tennis player Naomi Cavaday is back on the tour after retiring for three years due to illness . Expectations proved so suffocating that she fell into long bouts of depression and bulimia that caused her to retire for three years, a phase of her life from which she has happily emerged to the extent that last month she returned to competition. Three weeks ago she won her first professional tournament back, in Egypt, and while it was at the humble Futures level of the tour it gave more satisfaction than the scare she once gave the illustrious Williams sibling at SW19. Cavaday looks healthy and content as she reflects on how her eating habits towards the end of her "first" career became so dysfunctional that she once went for three months surviving on nothing but coffee and pineapple. 'I wasn’t one of the "chosen ones" as a junior and only took tennis seriously at around 15. I improved very quickly and at 16I suddenly started getting lots of attention and financial support. Within twelve months I was given a wildcard into Wimbledon when I’d never even played there as a junior,' she recalls. 'I got inside the world’s top 200 at 18 but then I got sort of stuck and that’s when it got really difficult. Everyone was telling me that I was heading for the top 50 and I just thought "hold on, I’ve got to get my head around this". I was trying to act as the person I wanted to be, not who I was. 'Some people think that British tennis players can be a bit weak and I was desperate not to fit into that stereotype.' Away on tour evening mealtimes became a desperate ritual, eating and then emptying her stomach in the privacy of her hotel room. Cavaday suffered from long bouts of depression and bulimia that caused her to quit the sport . 'I’ve had issues off and on with food since I was about 12 and about 19 or 20 it started getting quite bad. I was effectively getting by on two meals per day despite the calories I was burning. There were times I was too heavy, others when I’d get too thin. 'People underestimate how tough and competitive tennis is. Virtually everyone loses every week they play, and when you are depressed that is tough to handle. The eating and depression went together.' This highly engaging and unusually gifted lefthander, whose potential could be bracketed with that of Heather Watson or Laura Robson, has always been a bit different with an avid curiosity about the world, as you would expect from someone whose heroes are Richard Dawkins and the late polemicist Christopher Hitchens. Just before her 22nd birthday she quit the circuit. 'I’ve often wondered if there were other things I might be good at. But I started coaching and also became a young ambassador for BEAT, the eating disorder charity. Once they sent me off to speak at this major international conference in Italy. I think I was the about the only young athlete they could find prepared to talk about it, but the problem is definitely quite common among young people in sport. When you’ve been through it you can spot it sometimes with how people are. It is quite easy to underestimate the pressure in any sport.' Cavaday (left) shakes hands with Venus Williams after losing in the first round at Wimbledon 2008 . Cavaday’s coaching work took her to the Virgin Leisure Centre in Northwood, and it was earlier this year she started thinking about playing again. Working with eminent British coaches Alan Jones, Jo Durie and her former coach David Felgate, she began joining in with elite training squads to set an example of what professional training is like - and found she fell in love with it again. 'David was coaching Donna Vekic (the Croatian teenager who has been in the world’s top 70 this year) and got me to hit with her. It turned out I could compete well, winning sets in practice against her. Donna was saying, "Why aren’t you playing anymore?"' Cavaday pushed Williams close on Centre Court in 2008 before losing 7-6, 6-1 to the then-defending champion . The death in May of her friend and former British number one Elena Baltacha was another factor. 'Elena was so brave and always so encouraging to me. She never nagged me about coming back but always said she envied my natural ability. I thought of how she coped with her liver condition during her career and it made me think I could cope with my own things.' Later this week Cavaday will travel to Sweden to play more tournaments. 'I’m in better physical shape than I’ve ever been but still very short of matchplay. The big difference this time is that it is my choice, and my experience of recent years and being older has made me much better equipped to handle the pressures. I feel so much better in myself. 'I still have to be careful about my eating but everything is under control and my confidence is very high. I’m sure I can get back to where my ranking was pretty quickly and go on from there, but if I don’t it’s not the end of the world. And I want to show that young people can get through things like depression and bulimia, that it’s not a life sentence.'